Atlanta gets another gift. What took so long?
mainSoon after the orchestra was allowed back to work after a disastrous lockout, a local foundation gave $38 million. This week, an Atlanta couple have added $1.25 million to support the musicians’ endowment fund.
Money is flooding in to the orchestra. The city wants it to survive. Why did its management think otherwise? Why is the Woodruff Arts Center still being run by the same executives and board members who thought silencing the orchestra was a good idea?
Answers, anyone?
What are you asking, exactly? I don’t understand this post at all. Other than the eye-rollingly disingenuous claim that the city, or the arts center, or the executive director, or anybody, somehow “didn’t want” the symphony to survive. At a basic level, I can answer the vague question in your headline; people don’t make 7 or 8 figure gifts on anyone’s timeline but their own.
Only a portion of the $38 million gift from the Woodruff Foundation goes to the ASO as listed here:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/38-million-grant-to-bolster-atlanta-symphony-orchestra/
I think it takes a certain type of personality to recognise when they are wrong or unqualified to complete a job, and to step aside to bring in people that are better qualified. That said, if the management had those personality traits, the ASO may likely never have been in this position in the first place. The orchestra is being run like a business as opposed to a nonprofit… And in business, when profits (donations) are up, everyone is happy and it is assumed everyone is doing their job correctly. Two years from now, when the heightened awareness (through social media) of the ASO predicament has subsided, will the management and the staff be doing their jobs to keep the donation coming and increasing?